Not blow for blow; The spoiler of his prey deprive we wept when we remembered Zion. You have already declared it. The speech was originally delivered at a moment when the country was fiercely locked in debate over the question of slavery, but theres a reason why it has remained famous more than 150 years after emancipation, says David Blight, author of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning biography Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. This is a particularly difficult time for any such return, given the lack of civility and acceptance of intolerance that characterize our public discourse starting with the president. Frederick Douglass (18181895) was a former slave who became a nationally recognizedabolitionist orator during the antebellum period. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. That assembly, which represented property-owning men, took place on July 30, 1619. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. is the popular name of a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on the Fifth of July 1852 in Rochester, N.Y.. Is it at the gateway? The River Campus Libraries Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation's holdings includes a manuscript collection of Douglass's letters, photographs, and ephemera. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They are not part of the original. Based on what I know of his writings, however, I think he would have very mixed feelings about the progress we have made. For more information on this event visit CharlesHamiltonHouston.org. Be warned! We may finally be thinking about creating a commission to study the possibility of reparationsas with all deliberate speed, the American way of tackling a problem takes so much time and patienceand for this we can be thankful. Our ability to communicate has led to much greater organizing and mobilization. I doubt even Douglass could have anticipated the technology we have or its uses. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. Keidrick Roy, the host of the virtual reading event. ROY: The event that were doing in Somerville puts pressure on whitewashed conceptions of the Fourth of July, as many people to this day still view it as a celebration of American food, fireworks, and freedom. It were considered radical, extreme, and risky. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. Presenting ideas in. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. Well, we have all come to understand that while on its face this amendment appeared to outlaw forever slavery and involuntary servitude, its exception for those serving a punishment for crime left open the door for what Douglas Blackmon has called Slavery by Another Name and Ana DuVernays so painfully rendered film, 13th, revealed as continued oppression in the 21st century. Chan School of Public Health celebrates opening of $25M Thich Nhat Hanh Center for research, approaches to mindfulness, Women who suppressed emotions had less diverse microbiomes in study that also found specific bacterial link to happiness, Tenn. lawmaker Justin Pearson, Parkland survivor David Hogg 23 talk about tighter gun control, GOP attempts to restrict voting rights, importance of local politics, Dangers involved in rise of neurotechnology that allows for tracking of thoughts, feelings examined at webinar, 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, By Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite Harvard Staff Writer, Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? in 1852, drawing parallels between the Revolutionary War and the fight to abolish slavery. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. Without this fight, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. But such is not the state of the case. "We need the. Would you argue more, and denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." He follows this observation by closing with words from William Lloyd Garrison, suggesting the new reach of the great abolitionist across the ocean as part of a global abolition movement. Is that a question for Republicans? Do you think Douglass would be surprised to learn that Americans are reciting his words nearly 170 years later? Douglass message about America struggling to live up to the lofty goals it set for itself at the founding continues to be relevant, says Blight. ROY: The better we get to know the people that we live with, that we work around, that we see at the coffee shop, and the more we talk about these important racial issues with one another, the easier it will be to heal our divided communities. We need individual events like reading Douglass, but we also need to be thinking about ways to extend this conversation over the long term. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. With them, nothing was settled that was not right. He was invited to give a fourth of July speech by the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester. So while the U.S. tends to go all out celebrating freedom on the Fourth of July, alternate independence commemorations held a day later often draw attention to a different side of that story, with readings of the Frederick Douglass speech best known today as What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?. Like brutes no more. "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. ", Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? (modern), Frederick Douglas addressing an English audience during his visit to London in 1846., Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men! When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man! Harvard Law Today recently interviewed David Harris, managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, the events cosponsor, about the public reading and the continued relevance of Douglass words. Next, Douglass presents a picture of American slavery. there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. The wet plate ambrotype plates are housed in a folding leather case with tooled gilt oval mat. On July 5, 1875, as Reconstruction brought its own fears, like violence from the Ku Klux Klan, Douglass shifted his speech for the day, asking, If war among the whites brought peace and liberty to the blacks, what will peace among the whites bring? But the 1852 What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? speech remains the best known of his addresses on the occasion, especially as it became even more widely read in the late-20th century, with events like the public readings sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council and a powerful reading by James Earl Jones in 2004. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land was made? Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped "To palter with us in a double sense: And keep the word of promise to the ear, But break it to the heart.". The people who came to America were surprised by its history. The manhood of the slave is conceded. Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. Douglass continued to add to the speech in the years that followed. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. I think he would look at the ongoing gulf between our ideals and reality and might refer back to some of his own analysis to understand the current contradictions. Above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. During the Civil War he worked tirelessly for the emancipation ofenslaved African Americans and duringthe decades followingthe war, he was arguably the most influential African American leader in the nation. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour. Although it has also facilitated the spread of hateful ideas and untruths, I suspect Douglass, who understood perhaps better than anyone in the 19th century the power of images, would have reveled in our ability to capture and convey video of events. In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it: God speed the year of jubilee ': The History of Frederick Douglass' Searing Independence Day Oration. Had I the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would, today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. GAZETTE: This is your second year as host of Reading Frederick Douglass Together in Somerville. The claims of human brotherhood, Two readings, 165 years apart, addressed to a nation at a precarious political moment. To some, celebrations of American independence on July 4 are a reminder of the countrys hypocrisy on the matter of freedom, as slavery played a key role in the nations history; even today, Americas history of racism is still being written, while other forms of modern-day slavery persist in the U.S. and around the world. In short, it gave the federal government an active role in maintaining the Souths system of slavery. Why Frederick Douglass' famous 1852 anti-slavery speech is still read and still resonates in 2017. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. . Douglass printed the speech in his newspaper, Frederick Douglass' Paper, and published 700 copies of it in pamphlet form. A small group would gather in a circle and take turns reading paragraphs from the speech. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, Watch: A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates, Oprah Winfrey, Media Mogul and Philanthropist, National Museum of African American History & Culture, A Nation's Story: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Each foe. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? "Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved. And wear the yoke of tyranny See answers Advertisement bhawsarsakshi4 I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Magazines, Digital For decades, slaves fled the South . I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. Both critiques seek true fidelity to those principles we fail to keep. Douglass presented this speech to an antislavery societyan audience that was already on his side. ROY: Douglass wrote the speech in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which effectively extended the reach of slave power in the South throughout the rest of the country. GAZETTE: What is the historical setting for this speech, and why did Douglass focus on the Fourth of July? Funny you should ask. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. When from their galling chains set free, This speech is now remembered as oneof Douglass' most poignant. Can you tell me about the origins of the Reading Frederick Douglas Together project? Uncle Toms Cabin had just been published that spring and was taking the country by storm. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. You may rejoice, I must mourn. I attended in 2008 and was deeply moved by the experience. Mark them! Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations historythe very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. Addressing an audience of about 600 at the newly constructed Corinthian Hall, he started out by acknowledging that the signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave and great men, and that the way they wanted the Republic to look was in the right spirit. Within twenty years Douglass was the one of the most famous men in the United Statesauthor of two widely read memoirs and an orator who commanded among the highest speaking fees in the nation.
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